


Mission Valentine

by candlewick



Series: holiday oneshots [7]
Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Connor Murphy is fucking okay, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Kleinsen, Love Confessions, M/M, Oneshot, Valentine's Day, i forgot how to...... tag, jared-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 01:51:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13671795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candlewick/pseuds/candlewick
Summary: Jared was head over fucking heels for his best friend. Yeah, ever since junior year, he’d gotten over the “family friends” thing and tried to be more genuine with his jokes and invitations to hang out, which totally worked so far. This was the first step in turning their friendship into something more, which had a deadline: Valentine’s. Obviously.(Jared spoils Evan with shitty, school-issued Valentine's gifts and emoji stickers. Lucky for him, it was easy to impress Evan.)





	Mission Valentine

**Author's Note:**

> hgnfjghdjn i rlly wanted to get this out by valentine's but idk if i put enough details :,)) also idk how to title things i'm...... sorry
> 
> please enjoy!!

Every year on Valentine's Day, Jared liked to mess around a little. He'd usually slap kissy emoji stickers on people's lockers and watch them peel them off, or slip a condom into a locker with a sappy post-it note. It started sometime freshman year, with everyone gushing over their “secret admirers” and the more daring kids asking their crushes if they'd placed stuff there. It was fun being totally unknown, even when people actually started getting together _because_ of Jared and not getting _with_ Jared. It was pretty cool, since that wasn't even his intention. He'd accidentally made people super happy.

He kept it up every year, pressing stickers on random students’ things, sticking cheesy post-its on their backpacks in the hall saying stuff like “kiss me!” Every year, Jared got to be a matchmaker. It never got out of hand, it never bothered him, it never made people annoyed. Eventually, it was an anticipated thing when Valentine's Day was coming up. Friends would bet on who would get the stickers and condoms, enemies would talk shit and hope their nemesis wouldn't get anything from the Anonymous Admirer. No one really used that except for some kids who got the nickname from Alana Beck, but Jared thought it was neat. He was a legend.

It would probably be more enjoyable if he could actually grow the balls to do it to his actual crush.

Every year, he placed stickers and condoms and notes on a fuckton of people. By senior year, he'd done it to the school hottie, the school nerd, the school goth, the school shoo--Connor Murphy. (He wasn't as pleased as everyone else was, but he didn’t make a huge show of crumpling up the note and stomping on it like during sophomore year. Therapy must’ve really gotten the kid to lighten up.) Nearly everyone had gotten Jared's blessings. The only ones who hadn't were the total assholes. Well, them and Evan Hansen.

He didn't know why he couldn't slap a sticker or slide a note in for him. Nearly everyone in his class had gotten a valentine from him, which was easy to do. What wasn’t easy was being in love with your friend since you were four years old.

How could Jared not have fallen for this kid? Blond hair, blue eyes, shy smile, warm laugh. Evan Hansen was totally cute. Sure, he was kind of a piece of work, but all masterpieces took some effort. Uh, Starry Night. Mona Lisa. Those were pretty popular. Think they came easy? No! They took patience. Jared was very patient, whether it was staying silent for thirty seconds as Evan tried coming up with a coherent answer to a normal question, or standing by his car outside of school for fifteen minutes waiting for Evan to finish studying, or sitting on Evan’s couch for two hours straight watching a boring nature documentary. Yeah. Where the fuck was he going with this?

The point is, Jared was had over fucking heels for his best friend. Yeah, ever since junior year, he’d gotten over the “family friends” thing and tried to be more genuine with his jokes and invitations to hang out, which totally worked so far. This was the first step in turning their friendship into something more, which had a deadline: Valentine’s. Obviously. The next steps in Mission Valentine (Jared wasn’t too creative with naming things) were as follows:

Step two: Give Evan food. He was a sucker for fruit in warm chocolate, so Jared started packing strawberries and bananas to dip in those snack things with melted chocolate. He would’ve thrown in more stuff, but no one in his family really knew how to pick out good kiwis or melons or anything. Step two was done.

Step three: Get more comfortable. He knew Evan wasn’t big on consistent physical touches, but Jared tried getting him to share blankets while watching TV and touch knees while sitting down and gentle nudges while joking about whatever. He’d had to work up to it over a long period of time, but it was worth it when he could finally slide his arm behind Evan along the back of the couch with the blond being able to lean back comfortably rather than sit rimrod straight. Also finished.

Step four: Offer cheap gifts. This one was more complicated. At first, Jared wasn’t really sure whether he could even do it, but then he’d gotten accepted at a job for Starbucks and managed to save up enough money to blow a few bucks on some cheap thing every other week. He started with stuff like gum and gummy bears, but successfully worked his way up to giving cute little beanie babies at Evan whenever he’d come over. Jared would press one into his chest or throw it at his arm for attention, then act like he didn’t care for it when Evan commented about how cute it was. Eventually, his friend was convinced to bring home whatever he wanted. Sometimes Jared would wonder whether this was a good use of money, but then he’d visit Evan and see the organized lines of beanie babies across his dresser and desk and decide to look for more next week. Kind of a hard step, but he managed to do it.

Step five: Start flirting. This was pretty fun, but a lot of his efforts flew right over Evan’s head. “Did you sit in some sugar?” would lead to “What? No, I don’t think so, did I? Jared, oh my god, did--it is noticeable, do you think people will notice?” which really killed the joke. Classic one-liners would go to waste. Evan would ask Jared to hold something for him as he dug through his locker, Jared would reply with offering to hold his hand instead, Evan would say something stupid like “no, I mean this book. I think I left my calculus folder in here, but maybe it’s at home.” Still good, though. He’d have to keep this step continuous, but so far, it was going well.

Step six: Ask him to be his Valentine. Jared really didn’t want to end on six steps, but he figured lists were for chumps anyways. He’d end on whatever number he ended on. Step six was really difficult, but Jared had faith in himself. Ever since he’d had to be the supportive and bitter yet elated best friend/admirer at the end of last summer, when Zoe Murphy dumped Evan because of a busy band and social schedule (apparently her mom insisted on more family time), Jared had decided to act on his feelings. Thus, he came up with this list while buying ice cream and fluffy blankets and pillows. This step was just hella hard. How the hell do you even ask someone to be your Valentine?

In case it wasn’t horribly obvious already, Jared had never actually, like… did that. He knew how it was done, he did, it was just he didn’t know how to plan everything out right, much less get himself together enough to follow through. Something like get a card, write in it, stick a pack of candy hearts onto that, and be waiting there with some flower to ask whoever out on a date. Right? Yeah. Yeah, that was right. At least, he thought so. There was probably a Wikihow on doing something like this, but he really didn’t feel like looking for it and studying whatever it said. He never studied for any test, why would he study for Evan? That would’ve been one hell of a badass thing to think, but then Jared answered the question, which kind of defeated the purpose of a rhetorical thing.

He’d never studied for any test because he didn’t care, he thought as he started typing into the Chrome search bar. He’d study for Evan, though, because he really cared about Evan. God, what a fucking sappy thing to say.

A short while after the Wikihow thing, Jared was going through the steps as he strolled down the school hallway to look at the lockers he’d choose for his Valentine’s Vandalism. (That was a term he’d heard some giddy underclassman use.) He stopped in his tracks at the bulletin board right next to the student council room, pushing his glasses up for his own dramatic effect as he read the pink paper smack dab in the middle of it.

Valentine’s sale! Purchase roses, chocolate covered fruit, and more at the student council room during lunch period through Feb. 10 - Feb. 13

When he subtly strolled past Alana Beck during study hall on the twelfth, she stopped him and asked whether he’d be purchasing from the Valentine’s sale that day.

“Our senior culinary class will be preparing lots of sweets! We’ve got a few local florist businesses providing different flowers, including red roses. Well, that’s a given,” she’d told him proudly, handing him a half-sheet of paper. “Here’s the list of items and prices. I hope you’ll be donating to our fine arts fund!”

Yeah yeah, Jared didn’t really care about the prices or whatever. He just wanted to know whether they’d allow notes and anonymous labels. When he’d asked about this, Alana seemed happy to respond about any confidentiality issues requested by the senders.

“Cool, get me two things of each chocolate-covered thing, five--no, ten red roses, uh… three of those cake pop things, two strawberry, one vanilla. You’re selling those plush bears with hearts this year, right?”

“Wha--I mean, yes, they’re priced at--”

“Great, get me the biggest one of those. Also, three heart cookies with sprinkles and a handful of the Valentine’s Hershey Kisses. Like, an actual handful. Don’t be shy. Evan Hansen’s period four is AP Physics, period seven is Honors Calculus. No questions, take the cash, see you never.”

And then he’d walked away. It was kind of asshole-ish, but whatever.

Here he was now, sat one row behind Evan and two seats over in calc. He had a pretty good view of his friend in this class, which was kind of distracting. Student council got a bunch of requests, like every other year, so they did the deliveries on two days to cover everyone. One on the thirteenth, one on the fourteenth. Evan’s stuff hadn’t been ordered yet because of Jared’s lateness. It was planned, though, since he wanted Evan to get the stuff on actual Valentine’s Day, so Jared tried not to feel bad about Evan’s short glances towards the delivery student when they were handing out gifts.

This class was near the end of campus, so it was one of the last places for delivery. When student council came in, Jared sat up a bit more, clicking his phone off and sliding it under the math packet they were supposed to be working. He saw one huge plush bear and two smaller ones, some separate single roses, and a few extra cake pops, but the rest were items he’d ordered. He tried not to be too smug as one student read out Evan’s name on the label, the blond jolting slightly and looking up. Jared noticed Evan’s ears were red and wished he was able to see the blush on his face. Evan raised his hand when his name was called again and two different students moved over to him to give him the gifts.

Within five minutes, some people in the class were buzzing about the crazy amount of sweets and roses. The plush bear was so big, Evan had to rest it on his left leg since it would just come under his chin and block his desk if he had it totally on his lap. Not like it would’ve mattered, because his desk was cluttered with clear plastic containers of fruit, small baggies of pink, red, and silver Kisses, and a bunch of roses and cake pops in the same bouquet. Jared couldn't even see Evan’s work packet anymore. The student council kids gave some stuff to a few other students, then left to finish up deliveries.

When school ended, Jared was already by Evan’s desk. He picked up the bouquet of roses, looking on the plastic wrapping for the label on the side. As expected, it was addressed to Evan from a “Secret Admirer”.

“Who’s the private lover, Hansen?” he teased, looking down at the blond. Evan had turned to carefully set the plush bear on the empty desk next to him so he could start stacking the containers and put his stuff away.

“I-I don’t know? I don’t remember anyone, um, willing to get me stuff. Maybe they--They probably made it out to the wrong person,” Evan replied, a hand on his cheek to probably will away the flush that was still on his face. Jared fought to urge to snort in laughter.

“Uh, I don’t think anyone would accidentally send you, like, thirty dollars worth of school stuff?” Jared handed Evan the bouquet of roses with a grin, watching his friend hook an arm around the bear once he’d had his bookbag on before taking the flowers with a suppressed smile. “Hey, wanna get ice cream after this?”

“W-What? Oh, yeah, no, okay. My mom left me twenty dollars again,” Evan started, following Jared once he’d gathered up the other stuff and started walking out of the class. He was stopped there, the brunet holding up a hand to interrupt.

“On me. Hurry up, let’s get your stuff and leave before people start asking about the stickers.” When he realized he let that slip, Jared pursed his lips and mentally berated himself. Before he could start to make something up, Evan made a noise of surprise and started quickening his pace.

Earlier that morning, Jared had brought his supply of stickers to school with the intent of pulling his annual prank. He’d passed Evan’s locker, though, and decided to add on to the Valentine’s surprises. This year had to be hella special, so he only chose several people to pull the prank on. This included Connor Murphy to get an annoyed but flattered reaction, Alana Beck as thanks for dealing with his rushed order, and Zoe Murphy as a forgiveness thing even though she wouldn’t know it was him. Yeah, there was talk about how little people got locker surprises that Valentine’s, but Jared was saving up. He’d skipped Spanish class to go through with his plan without being seen.

As a result of that plan, Jared got to see Evan stop in front of his locker with the top of the plush bear covering the huge grin and blush on his face. A surplus of kissy, heart eyes, and winky emojis covered his locker, a huge amalgamate of yellow circles as big as his palm. Some students passed by pointing and aww-ing, some just laughing before moving on. Evan seemed to get a feeling, because he tucked the bear under his arm to have a free hand to open his locker. Post-it notes fluttered down to the floor, several of them stuck together. Several condoms were a bit delayed as they dropped onto the floor, making Jared snort.

After a good five minutes gathering everything and Jared tossing the wrapped condoms around at other kids, the two hopped into Jared’s old Jeep with their stuff in the backseat. Evan had shuffled through some of the post-its, each one keeping a smile on his face.

“Read another one to me,” Jared said, pulling his seatbelt down and buckling up. Evan shook his head at first, but looked over and laughed softly at Jared wiggling his brows.

“Okay, one more,” he relented, even though he’d said the same thing several times in the past few minutes. “Um, this one says, ‘you must be made of ten million fireflies, because I can’t believe my eyes when I look at you.’ Oh my god.”

Jared had pulled out of the school parking lot once Evan had buckled up while reading the note. He glanced over at his friend, grinning at Evan covering his face with his hands.

“Your ears are red.” He reached over to poke at Evan’s earlobe, drawing a flustered laugh from the blond.

“Oh my god, Jared,” Evan giggled, leaning away and starting to look through more of the post-its. The rest of the ride to Evan’s house was filled with Jared silently admiring his crush, who often let out a small breath or laugh at something written on the pieces of paper.

Once at the Hansen household, Jared helped Evan bring his stuff inside. They had to take some plastic flowers out of an empty vase to fill it with water for the red roses and Jared insisted on placing it on Evan’s desk. The giant stuffed bear was set on Evan’s bed and most of the treats were left in the fridge for when they got back from getting ice cream together.

Jared drove them to a nice ice cream place down some dirt road somewhere. He’d overheard Zoe Murphy trying to convince her brother to go and figured if she was recommending it, it wouldn’t be a bad spot to hang out. Evan got some chocolate-raspberry-whatever called “Love Potion” something or other. Jared got pistachio in a cone and ate it with some chocolate-covered bananas.

“Who do you think got the stuff for you?” Jared asked, scraping a piece of the chocolate-covered fruit through his ice cream and eating it. Evan shrugged, drumming his fingers over the stack of post-it notes on the small table.

“I don’t know who it could be, honestly,” the teen replied. Jared tried to ignore the slight sagging of his shoulders as he deflated. “Maybe--Maybe it’s a prank? Or they just chose a random locker, I dunno.”

Jared bit his lip slightly as Evan tried to avoid conversation by looking down at his ice cream and scraping raspberry syrup off the inside of the cup with his spoon. This kid really didn’t think someone would purposefully get him stuff for Valentine’s?

“Oh sure,” he replied, the sarcasm more bitter than he’d meant for it to be. Evan looked up with furrowed brows, but Jared continued. “Someone chose a random locker and wrote you random notes and spent a random amount of cash for a random student. Did you even notice how little people got stickers and shit? I didn’t even have one. Someone chose your locker to put most of their emoji stuff on, chose your locker to put notes and condoms in, chose your name and seventh period class to send stuff to.”

Evan looked adorably confused as he stared at Jared with wide, blue eyes. The shorter teen raised his brows as Evan spooned a small amount of ice cream into his mouth.

“My point is,” Jared started again, reaching out to take Evan’s wrist and gently push it onto the table so he wouldn’t be distracted from his words. He ignored the other boy’s blush in favor of finishing this mini-speech thing. Whatever he was doing. “Someone--I don’t know who--chose  _you_ as their Valentine. Fucking own it, Ev.”

The two looked at each other, Jared with a determined grin and quirked eyebrow, and Evan with an almost fond gaze and slightly parted lips. He didn’t really know how or when it happened, but his hand had moved down to hold Evan’s hand carefully.

“Yeah,” Evan breathed out, clearing his throat right afterwards and fiddling with his plastic spoon. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. It couldn’t have been--been, like, an accident. Okay.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

Step three, getting Evan to be more comfortable with touch, was really a great accomplishment. They ate the rest of their ice cream, tossed away their trash, and walked back to the car without releasing each other’s hand once.

The drive was silent except for a faint love song playing from the radio from some station’s Valentine’s soundtrack thing. Once they pulled into the front parking space in front of the Hansen household, Evan unbuckled and looked over, hand on the door handle. Jared kept the car running, adjusting his glasses as he looked right back at his friend and crush.

“Are you, um… You coming in?” the blond asked timidly, his other hand toying with the hem of his jacket. That was all Jared needed to put the car in park and unbuckle his own seatbelt, having been waiting for an invitation. He slid out of the car, but not before catching Evan’s smile as he turned and opened the passenger side door.

Jared kind of hoped they would hold hands once they got inside, but neither of them seemed able to initiate it. Instead, he just let Evan unlock the door and open it before the two of them headed in, leaving their keys at the small table thing next to the door. They got the cake pops from the fridge and bounced up to Evan’s room, sitting cross-legged across from each other.

“Who do you think it is?” Jared asked again, unwrapping the chocolate cake pop and dumping some loose heart sprinkles from the small plastic baggie it came in before shoving the entire treat into his mouth. Evan was more gracious, just taking his out of the baggie carefully and taking small bites with his hand below it to catch the crumbs.

“I dunno,” Evan answered, letting his friend take the plastic bag from his cake pop to eat the loose sprinkles in it. “I don’t think they left a name or anything. Maybe I should ask Alana, since she was kind of in charge of that. Right? Was she in charge of this?”

“She’s in charge of everything, you know that. Girl’s gonna be president one day, seriously. And no, you shouldn’t ask her. That takes all the fun out of it. Come on, who do you think--well, who do you hope it is? Anyone in the world, I don’t care if you wish it was Keanu Reeves or whoever. One person as your dream Valentine, go.” Jared lowered the plastic baggy and pointed at Evan.

“Oh, okay. Um…” It was really hard not to stare at Evan biting his lip and tapping the cake pop against his mouth in thought, but Jared managed to keep his gaze from wandering there. “God, I really don’t… Bob Ross?”

Jared laughed loudly at that, earning laughs from Evan as well. He threw all caution to the wind and reached forward to take his friend’s hand again, watching him flush through the laughter and adjust his hand to hold Jared’s more comfortably.

Later in the evening after a few hours of conversation and playing games on their phones and even doing homework, the pair was laying on the bed, staring at the ceiling as they kept their fingers interlocked. Evan had taken a rose from the vase and twirled the thornless stem it in his hand, admiring the red petals. They decided Jared would sleepover, since his parents always went on a date night for Valentine's and Heidi was working late again at the clinic. No parents, no rules. Just two teens hanging out over the weekend for Valentine's.

Yeah, this seemed kinda gay.

“This seems kinda gay,” Jared spoke up, noticing Evan turning to look at him in his peripheral. He took a moment to take a quiet breath in before looking over as well.

“How?” Evan asked, his fingers pausing to just hold the rose still. Jared glanced down at it, making a mental note to ask Beck what florist they'd contacted, then looked back up to meet his friend's gaze.

“It's Valentine's Day,” he said as if Evan would pick up. Obviously, he did not, and Jared shifted onto his side to face the blond properly, deciding he should start with… whatever he was doing right now. He should really think things through more. “We're both alone, you've got a rose. We're holding hands.”

A small jolt of panic moved through him when Evan's fingers twitched, but he calmed again when the other teen made no move to release his hand. Jared loosened his grip slightly, in case Evan wanted to let go. To his delight, Evan only held on tighter.

“W-Well, uh…” Jared chose not to point out that Evan's hand was becoming sweaty, but he knew they both knew. “Do you…”

They both seemed to hold their breath, Jared in anticipation and Evan in hesitation. The anxious male started to flush and looked up at the ceiling, breaking their eye contact.

Come on, say it, the brunet thought. Ask me to be your Valentine, and you have me.

“Do I…?” he prompted.

“Do you want this rose?” Evan blurted out instead. Jared deflated some, but refused to end it there. He'd pull through. “I-I mean, uh, I have lots, so--"

“No thanks, I really wanted you to have them,” Jared said slowly. Evan was cut off, gaze snapping back to Jared quickly. He didn’t seem as surprised as Jared expected. Actually, he looked kind of… relieved. Which made a pleasant warmth bloom in Jared’s stomach. “You like the presents? I would have gotten you more, but I wasn’t sure you’d want any. From me, I mean.”

For a moment, the blond laid there gaping like a fish. His mouth would open, he’d hesitate, his mouth would close. It was kind of hilarious, but Jared pursed his lips since he didn’t want to be laughing during this totally serious moment. Eventually, Evan spoke up, voice shy and quiet.

“I-I love the gifts, yeah. You’re the one who’s been putting stickers on people’s lockers? All those notes?” At Jared’s nod, Evan stared for a moment before slowly moving onto his side as well. The two were closer now and Jared squeezed Evan’s hand slightly, watching the other’s cheeks darken. “Thank you. That was--I-I’m glad you were the one who got me this stuff.”

“Yeah? Glad enough to be my Valentine?” Jared asked after a moment of thought. He glanced down at Evan’s lips briefly, soft and pink and inviting. When he met blue eyes again, Evan gave a flustered smile before closing his eyes and moving forward, meeting Jared’s lips with little hesitation. Jared made a pleased hum before kissing back, his free hand coming up to rest on Evan’s cheek.

Step six: complete.

**Author's Note:**

> smorch
> 
> i hope you have/had a radical valentine's, even if you're a single pringle B^)) if not, all valentine's chocolate goes on sale afterwards so GO GO GO
> 
> thank you so much for reading!!


End file.
